V+M | 2015

9 channel video and sound installation | Created by by JOHN SANBORN | Music by Theresa Wong

Co-Produced by Videoformes, Clermont-Ferrand.

Power, Myth, Desire

The ultimate strength is the capacity to love.

We spend our lives becoming the people we are supposed to be - and steps in that development are the archetypes we grow up with - images of male and female that are now outdated. V+M examines the nature and value of Venus and Mars by retelling their story rendered in the language of love, delivered by portraits of three couples (male + female, female + female, male + male) whose attraction and love cross traditional boundaries. The work presents a cross-gender interpretation of the mythic pairing of Eros and Chaos in order to go to the root of what makes Mars, Mars; and Venus, Venus.

The union of Venus and Mars fascinated poets and philosophers as the allegorical example of balance between opposing energies – beauty and brutality, order and magic, and grace and strength. V+M goes beyond the heteronormative code in order to queiry the balance of power in relationships, the nature of myth making and the origins of desire.